CoronaVirus Symptoms vs Flu vs Cold & When Should You See A Doctor?

Hello Health Champions. In this video I want to go over some of the signs and

symptoms of the corona virus and how they compare with and contrast to some

of the other common ailments like colds and flus and allergy I also want to

cover some unique characteristics of the corona virus to help you avoid getting

it but more importantly to help avoid spreading it. Coming right up

hey I'm dr. Ekberg I'm a holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if

you want to truly master health by understanding how the body really works

make sure you subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don't miss

anything it's certainly easy to get paranoid during a pandemic like the

corona virus outbreak we're just finishing up cold and flu season and

we're heading into allergy season so millions of people are having symptoms

anyway but what do they mean well here are the most common corona virus

symptoms they're not necessarily how severe they are but it's the frequency

so 88% of people who get infected are gonna have a fever at some point not

necessarily so much in the beginning but it would develop over time dry cough is

going to be experienced by 68% of people and these two are the big

characteristics of the corona virus then we have things like fatigue and wet

cough that get about a third we'll get those and the wet cough is also

described as sputum production as opposed to a dry cough where it's just

kind of irritating a sputum production of wet cough means that things are

coming up out of the lungs shortness of breath muscle pain and

joint pain now we're getting down to about if they're a sixth of people sore

throat headache chills less common and quite uncommon are things like nausea or

vomiting nasal congestion diarrhea and with the nasal congestion also sneezing

kind of rare and that's one of the things that set this apart so what about

kids well the symptoms are going to be the same but for the most part they are

less severe kids get away pretty easily for the most part however when they get

it they're the same so they get the same fever and the cough and even respiratory

distress in severe cases even though they're fewer something to keep in mind

though is that even mild cases are contagious that you're just as likely

to give it to someone else even if you are not as harshly affected kids not

being so aware of the importance of this that's just an extra reason to limit

their activities and keep them away from other people so let's take a look at how

the symptoms compare across some of the more common ailments with corona you're

going to almost always have a fever with a cold it's gonna be more rare with the

flu you're gonna almost always have a fever and with allergies it's going to

be rare the dry cough is something that is quite common with all four of them

but even more so with a corona and the flu so cough is not a discerning factor

you're gonna have that pretty much in all of these shortness of breath is very

characteristic for the corona virus but more so in the more severe cases as the

infection progresses you can get a secondary infection which causes

inflammation and fluid buildup in the lungs and most people who die from the

corona virus die from acute respiratory distress syndrome meaning the fluid

builds up to the point where there's not enough available surface area dry

surface area in the lungs to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide and now they

basically drown the cold and the flu are not going to have shortness of breath or

respiratory distress and allergies however can have that but it's not going

to be the same mechanism you're going to react

- pollen and environmental stressors not have the respiratory distress because of

fluid buildup when it comes to aches and pains they do happen with coronavirus

quite a bit but even more so with the colds and the flues and hardly at all

with allergies so the first three are infectious agents where as allergies

again you're reacting to the environment same thing with sore throat that follows

the same pattern that you're gonna have it with the infectious agents but not

with the allergies what about a runny nose runny nose is quite rare with

corona which is surprising to most people but

the corona virus has receptors that affect the lungs specifically so with

colds and flus you're gonna have lungs and head congestion but with the corona

you're gonna have pretty much neck down it's going to be lungs primarily so the

colds and the flu are gonna have quite a bit of runny nose especially the cold

and also allergies you can get very congested and runny nose sneezing is

virtually absent with the corona it could happen of course if you breathe in

some pepper or something but as a result of the virus it doesn't really happen

the cold also has very frequent sneezing whereas with the flu it's kind of rare

and with allergies is extremely common let's take a look at how the symptoms

overlap if you have cold or allergies then you're gonna have it she is cough

runny nose and sneezing and if you have those primarily that's a good sign that

you don't have the corona virus or the flu corona versus the flu is a little

bit harder to differentiate because they do have fevers and chills they do both

have the cough the difference is going to be primarily on the shortness of breath

in the COVID-19 and it's gonna be that the flu also

effects the the head the chest and the head whereas the COVID-19 is primarily

the chest another difference is that the COVID-19 is going to have a slower onset

and progression typically whereas the flu is pretty much once you get it you

wake up one morning and it's there it's overnight now let's talk a little bit

about why is the corona virus why is COVID-19 so bad. Why are countries

shutting down is it all the deaths not really even though the death rate is

significantly higher than the common flu than the regular flu it's about

depending on the age group and the category it's between four times to

twenty times more deadly than the flu but it's still a small percentage so

that's not the reason that we should be concerned that's not why they're locking

down borders the reason is something called R naught which is a value that

talks about how easily it spreads so if R naught is one that means that for

every person gets infected they're gonna transmit it they're gonna infect or

contaminate one other person and if that's the case then the disease neither

shrinks nor grows okay it stays the same that if we have a hundred people then

they're gonna get well but before they get well they're gonna infect another

hundred people if it's less than one then the infection is gonna peter out

and die on its own because for every person who gets infected they're gonna

infect less than one so it's never gonna take off if it's a little bit more than

one now even a 1.1 or a 1.2 that's still pretty serious because now that means

that the infection will increase there will be more and more people there is an

exponential growth even if it's very slight so with the flu we have an R

nought of 1.3 which is still pretty bad and that's why these influenzas

spread however with the coronavirus the R naught is 2.0 to 2.5 and that may not

seem like an astronomical number but it is pretty huge because this means a

doubling exponential function that means for every person who gets it they're

gonna infect between two and two and a half people so instead of having a

growth rate of 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 12 we have 1 2 4 8 16 32 so it's doubling and

that's why you see these growth curves getting really really scary shooting

pretty much straight up that's the number one reason why this is so scary

another factor is that they're not quite sure but it seems like the incubation

time meaning the time between when you get contaminated when you get infected

with the virus until you start developing symptoms is 2 to 14 days

that's quite a long time which means you can go for up to 2 weeks being infected

spreading it to others and not knowing it for the flu that number is much much

lower between 1 to 4 days you know much faster if you're infected so you don't

have the chance to give it to as many other people so even though the death

rate is higher than the flu it's not anywhere near that of Ebola or SARS or

anything like that but the spread characteristics is what makes this so

serious I know you've heard this before but I'm gonna tell you again protect

yourself wash your hands and wipe surfaces and objects frequently

everything you come in contact with anything that people other people come

in contact with wipe it down as often as you can because the virus on your skin

won't harm you but the virus inside your body means your

infected so even if you get it on your hands even if you touch things if you

wash carefully and frequently then you can wash it away and not get infected

the other thing that's really difficult is don't touch your face and what they

have found is most people touch their face every three to four minutes

throughout the day it's subconscious we're not aware of it it's just

something that we do maybe it's a little itch

maybe we're just supporting our head but we touch our faces all the time and the

areas you want to avoid is mouth nose and eyes if you touch those areas and

you have the virus on your hands then you are likely to get infected so if you

think that you did get it now what do you do well you stay at home you isolate

yourself you avoid contact with people you avoid spreading it and why do you

stay at home well for a few reasons the first one is that 80% of cases are

mild you don't need anything to get over it you're gonna get some symptoms you're

just like a cold or flu your body is gonna fight it off and you will get

better the second reason is that they can't really do anything for you

all right there is no treatment for most viruses period and for this one because

it's so new especially they don't really have anything to do for you the only

time that they can help you is they can help you with breathing if it gets to

that point and also of course you want to stay at home to avoid spreading it to

others but what if it gets worse what if you're not in the 80% what if you're in

the category that gets worse now is when you call a doctor because now you might

get to the point where you will need some help but you can also have someone

to consult with that can tell you the correct steps to follow and the reason

you want to call your doctor is if you get shortness of breath that would be an

indication that you have is secondary pneumonia that your lungs may be filling

up with some fluid and that you're reducing that

exchange surface in your lungs if you have persistent pain or pressure in the

chest that would be another sign if someone in your household has a

confusion that wasn't there before or if they're sleeping or if they're sort of

nodding off or losing attention you can't get get them to arouse can't get

their attention that would also be serious signs if their lips or face are

turning blue or bluish that's another sign all of these things indicate

hypoxia that your body is not getting enough oxygen now here's the main thing

to understand the death rate is relatively low it's been estimated about

1.4 percent recently so this is not so much about you as it is about others you

if you're reasonably healthy you'll probably be okay but you could still

spread it to others so the death rate recently has been estimated about 1.4

percent and depending on the age group the younger age groups have about 0.2%

death rate whereas people over 80 years old have about a 15% death rate so if

you're young and healthy you're gonna be okay most likely but it doesn't mean

that you can't spread it to others another feature is that some people have

such a mild infection that they're asymptomatic they don't even know that

they have it but if they have it they can still give it to others and if you

add the fact that the incubation period is as long as 14 days then even people

who eventually get sick they could walk around for 14 days and infect others so

some people kind of have the attitude of damn the torpedoes or yippee it's Spring

Break we really want to change that mindset we really want to change that

way of thinking I believe it's very irresponsible for the young people to go

on spring break and say hey look my death rate is 0.2%

lower and I'm probably not going to get it so I'll be fine because those same

people will probably a lot of them will probably contract the virus and then

take it home to their families and give it to their parents and grandparents who

might be in this category so it's not about us

it's about everybody okay it's not about the individual it's about locking down

the spread so that we can contain this but most importantly don't panic we want

to take this very seriously we want to understand that it is a crisis it is a

pandemic but we also want to understand that we will probably be okay as long as

we contain it and don't give it to others if you enjoyed this video make

sure that you take a look at that one thank you so much for watching I'll see

you in the next video